Spotify for Artists Guide

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Updated September 18th 2018

Spotify is without a doubt the giant of the music streaming world and a very good friend to artists (signed and unsigned) worldwide. One of the things we love most about Spotify is their artists-only tool Spotify For Artists.

As a music service but also a tech company Spotify is constantly evolving so we have put together our one-stop-shop for understanding Spotify For Artists, which we will continue to update each time there is a new feature added to the service.

Getting verified on Spotify is now easier than ever!

Spotify is very important to us here at Spinnup – it is one of the major online retailers we distribute to, and we collect important Spotify trend data which is displayed in every artist account under ‘Stats & Activity‘ to help artists gauge how their releases are performing from day one. Plus they started in Sweden, just like us!

Lately Spotify has been going through some changes, which can have an impact on each and every one of you, both as artists and as listeners. So if you find yourself asking, “what’s new with Spotify? And how will it affect me?” Well, we got you covered.

Fan Insights / Spotify For Artists

Back in late 2015, we told you all about Spotify’s beta version of Fan Insights, but now *drumroll please* Fan Insights has been renamed ‘Spotify for Artists‘ and is available to all artists!

In the two years since Spotify launched data tools for artists, they have been talking (and listening) to artists and management teams all over the world to optimise this aspect of their service and make it as useful as possible.

Spotify describes the reincarnation of their data tool as “a one-stop shop designed to guide you through Spotify.” What they mean by this is Spotify for Artists will help you access improved audience insights, song data and playlisting information

This helps you get to know your fans better by finding out where they live, how old they are, what features they’re using to discover your music, and what other artists they are listening to. Just read the testimonials of artists who have used the new Spotify data to make more informed touring and release decisions, which means you can too.

As well as improving their data insights tools, it is now easier than ever to manage your Spotify artist profile and…

Get Verified!

No longer do you have to wait until you have 250 followers to even be able to apply for verification. Instead, now all you need to do is have access to Spotify for Artists!

If you don’t already have access to Spotify for artists, click here and follow the steps to access your account.

But if you’re already verified don’t worry, you don’t need to do anything to keep the pretty blue tick on your profile. The new verification system means you’ll use Spotify for Artists to add and remove playlists from your profile, but use your personal account to create and edit them.

What does this mean for existing verified artists?

• You will keep your verification and all playlists will remain

• You will now add and remove playlists in Spotify for Artists, but you create and edit them from your personal account, like always

• If you’re using Fan Insights, you need to switch to using Spotify for Artists

What if I’m not verified?

• You can become verified really easily, simply by accessing Spotify for Artists, no more 250 followers!

• You will need to add/remove playlists in Spotify for Artists, but create and edit them from your personal account

• You may need to wait a few weeks for the blue tick to appear on your profile.

Artist Profile & Bio

Now that you’re a bonafide and verified Spotify artist you are able to freely edit your public profile! Get your creative hats on because now you can update your artist image as often as you change your outfit – sounds like a lot of work, but each to their own! You can also show people what music you’re jamming to by choosing your ‘artist’s pick’ that sits at the top of your profile, and add playlists – either ones you’ve created or your favourites that you want to share with your fans.

In September 2017 Spotify announced that artists can now directly edit their artist bio, which was previously unavailable. This is a great place to let fans know more about you or your band, and convey your personality, creativity or sense of humour. Have fun with it, but don’t go too overboard!

Electronic musician Caribou keeps his bio short and sweet, but is a nice touch!

How to edit your artist bio, step by step:

1. Go to your Spotify For Artists profile and scroll down to ‘Artist Bio’

3. Add links to your music, music you feature on, playlists – anything on Spotify! Just use the ‘@’ symbol to look up playlists, artists or albums

4. If you have a Wikipedia page (if not, why not create one? It’s free and easy!) you can add a link to that here.

Pimp your profile with an image gallery

As of March 2018 artists can now make their Spotify profile look even better than ever with new custom image galleries. Once you login to your Spotify for Artists account, go to Profile under Tools in the left-hand menu, just like you would to edit any of the info on your Spotify artist page. Above where you enter your bio you can now add up to 125 photos of your choice! These could be official artist images, photos on you in the studio or making music, or on the road performing live – the possibilities are endless! It’s a great way to show fans what you’re up to and let them get to know you better. You can also edit your gallery from the Spotify for Artists mobile app.

You can edit the order of images, add or delete them at any time – so get creative!

Add your social media links

While we’re on the topic of editing your profile, artists can now add social media links to their profile, making it easy for fans to find them elsewhere online. No more hoping artists will find your Instagram handle where you’ve misspelt your name and use a 3 instead of an ‘E’ because someone already has a profile with your regular artist name.

Like above, just head to the Profile tab in your Spotify for Artists account, click About, and on the right-hand side, there is a new ‘More Info’ panel. Here you can add links to your Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Wikipedia pages.

Team Members

In September 2017 Spotify added an extra feature to Spotify For Artists, allowing artists to add team members to their account. Being a musician is a tough business, and having a team around you to support and grow your career goes a long way to helping you become a success! Now your team can help you even more by accessing your data and profile.

All artists can add team members to their Spotify For Artists account in three different access levels:

• Full Access – users that you grant complete access to all your features, including artist profile, stats, and the ability to invite and edit team membersRecommended for: Band members, managers

• Edit Access – these users can update your artist profile, view streaming stats, invite new team members for edit or view access, and view all members and their contact informationRecommended for: Booking agent, promoter, publicist

How do I add Team Members?

To add as many members as you would like to your team, simply signup or login to Spotify For Artists, and click the arrow next to your name. In the drop-down menu select ‘Manage Team’, which opens a page where you can input email addresses for the lucky few you will give access to, and set the access level for each.

Spotify Data

It’s no secret that here at Spinnup we love data, and lots of it. Which is why we were so excited to hear that Spotify has added even more data and analytics to the Spotify For Artists platform. You can read all the info about it here, or read below of a breakdown of what you can expect in your own SFA account.

• Stats for all songs – no longer do you have to earn 1000 streams to see your data, now you will see absolutely all of it for your top 200 songs. Don’t have 200 songs yet? Well what are you waiting for? Get recording!

• Time filters – you can now view your data by 7 days, 28 days (so 4 weeks, really), or two years! The reason this is so useful is that it will give you the chance to see if any big pushes (think PR cycle, a particular gig, social media campaign etc) really made an impact to your fans and streams.

• Follower data – your followers are your super fans, the ones who love your music so much they want to be notified every time you release something new. In your SFA account you now have a Follower Timeline to be able to track, and hopefully grow your follower count. More followers = more fans = more streams… you get the picture.

Pitching to Playlists

As of mid-2018, all artists are able to pitch their music directly to Spotify in the hope of having their song placed on a Spotify-curated playlist. The best part, it takes just a few minutes and can all be done right from within your Spotify For Artists account. The most important things to note are:

• You can only pitch one song at a time per release, so if you have an EP or an album you can only select one song from the project

• Tracks can only be pitched if they are in a pre-release state. That means you have created your release on Spinnup and set a release date in the future (we recommend two weeks at least), it has been approved by our team and is sitting in the ‘Upcoming’ tab of your SFA account

This is such an important tool for artists to use that we have dedicated a whole separate blog post to this.